kernel panic at start up

Used the computer in the morning creating a Photoshop graphic work. Shut it down, tried to turn it on in the evening, and it asks me to to turn it off and on, with a gray screen, message in several languages. As I restart it, I hear the initial fanfare and see the loading clock, but it goes back to the message again. This is kernel panic. Tried removing most of the peripherals such as external hard drives, printer, scanner, sound system and a second monitor. It still gives me that signal. Tried to start up by pressing command S for safe mode, nothing. Tried to start it up with my latest system snow leopard disk, by using the manual eject, nothing. Is there anything else that needs to be done? Would you guys help in the process?

2 Answers

Try a safe (shift) boot - this will work if you have a corrupt OS (font, extension, other file). Try an Option Start to see if you can get to the EFI screen to choose a different startup Disk. If you can't you might look at your LED diagnostic lights and see if they point to the problem.

Good Luck,

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Ok, disconnect all peripherals except those needed to boot up (mouse and keyboard). Disconnect all memory, clean the contacts on the memory (new pencil eraser good for that, then seat the memory back in the machine. (Please don't forget the static strap). Try it now. Kernel panics happen for many reasons but on start up they occur for usually three reasons. Faulty peripheral hardware, faulty RAM, or a corrupted boot file. If you fix it with the advise above then you know you have a bad peripheral or one of your RAM sticks is bad. If not, oh well, time to reinstall OS-X.

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